PORT - Portland art + news + reviews

Architecture Daily considers the reaction to the curtain wall for Jean Nouvel's now iconic Vision Machine in Chelsea. I think it's brilliant to design an exterior first and foremost from the ideas that form the interior. It will hold up very well, like the Marina Place apartments in Chicago.

Tyler Green asks who you would like to see make a new public art piece in your city? We have Kenny Scharf and a pretty crappy Judy Pfaff here in Portland... who would you like? The tops of my list are Anish Kapoor, Robert Irwin and an outdoor Jennifer Steinkamp video projection.

Kartz Ucci

Linfield presents Kartz Ucci's like smoke and holy water, "a site-specific response to the architectural grandeur of the natural light that fills the Linfield Gallery...Through the singular use of highly reflective mirrored surfaces and the absence of video and sound - like smoke and holy water as text/image and as object/sculpture is an attempt to isolate and elevate the viewer's psycho-physiological response to the architectural space of the Linfield Gallery." The show will run through October 9, 2010.

Opening reception • 6-8pm • September 1
Linfield Gallery • 900 SE Baker St., McMinnville, OR

Though this August has been littered with weakish summer group shows two excellent solo photography exhibitions next door to one another should not be missed, it is their last weekend. At Charles Hartman Fine Art there is a fantastic Museum level exhibition spanning the entire career of master photographer Andre Kertesz. Next door at Blue Sky Gallery it is the sobering prison hospice care documentation of Lori Waselchuk.


Andre Kertesz Washington Square, Winter (1966)

At Charles Hartman the roughly chronological display covers classic Kertesz images like Lovers (1915) taken in Budapest to the iconic Mondrain's Glasses and Pipe (1926) from his Paris years to the fantastic Washington Square, Winter (1966) Taken in New York City.

Kertesz is a master of geometric composition as Mondrian's Glasses and Pipe demonstrates with its asymmetrical table corner forming a tense pyramid on which the ascetic circles of the bowl, pipe and glasses rest in a seemingly offhand repose. Those three elements form another implied triadic form that along with the table makes a diamond referring to some of Mondrian's own paintings.

The Radiant Child

The NW Film Center is screening "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child," a 2010 Basquiat documentary directed by Tamra Davis. "Combining never-before-seen interview footage with commentary from friends and contemporary art world luminaries, Davis offers a compelling introduction to a singularly driven creative personality, an artist who could paint masterpieces in an hour (earning him Andy Warhol's extreme jealousy) and find endless inspiration in the oversaturated culture from which he emerged."

Film screenings • 7pm • August 27 & 28
NW Film Center @ PAM • 1219 SW Park • Whitsell Auditorium

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